• Home
  • About RSIS
    • Introduction
    • Building the Foundations
    • Welcome Message
    • Board of Governors
    • Staff Profiles
      • Executive Deputy Chairman’s Office
      • Dean’s Office
      • Management
      • Distinguished Fellows
      • Faculty and Research
      • Associate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research Analysts
      • Visiting Fellows
      • Adjunct Fellows
      • Administrative Staff
    • Honours and Awards for RSIS Staff and Students
    • RSIS Endowment Fund
    • Endowed Professorships
    • Career Opportunities
    • Getting to RSIS
  • Research
    • Research Centres
      • Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)
      • Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)
      • Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS)
      • Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
      • International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
    • Research Programmes
      • National Security Studies Programme (NSSP)
      • Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
    • [email protected] Newsletter
    • Other Research
      • Future Issues And Technology (FIT)
      • Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
  • Graduate Education
    • Graduate Programmes Office
    • Overview
    • MSc (Asian Studies)
    • MSc (International Political Economy)
    • MSc (International Relations)
    • MSc (Strategic Studies)
    • NTU-Warwick Double Masters Programme
    • PhD Programme
    • Exchange Partners and Programmes
    • How to Apply
    • Financial Assistance
    • Meet the Admissions Team: Information Sessions and other events
    • RSIS Alumni
  • Alumni & Networks
    • Alumni
    • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)
    • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO)
    • SRP Executive Programme
    • Terrorism Analyst Training Course (TATC)
  • Publications
    • RSIS Publications
      • Annual Reviews
      • Books
      • Bulletins and Newsletters
      • Commentaries
      • Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
      • Commemorative / Event Reports
      • IDSS Paper
      • Interreligious Relations
      • Monographs
      • NTS Insight
      • Policy Reports
      • Working Papers
      • RSIS Publications for the Year
    • Glossary of Abbreviations
    • External Publications
      • Authored Books
      • Journal Articles
      • Edited Books
      • Chapters in Edited Books
      • Policy Reports
      • Working Papers
      • Op-Eds
      • External Publications for the Year
    • Policy-relevant Articles Given RSIS Award
  • Media
    • Great Powers
    • Sustainable Security
    • Other Resource Pages
    • Media Highlights
    • News Releases
    • Speeches
    • Vidcast Channel
    • Audio/Video Forums
  • Events
  • Giving
  • Contact Us
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
RSISVideoCast RSISVideoCast rsis.sg
Linkedin
instagram instagram rsis.sg
RSS
  • Home
  • About RSIS
      • Introduction
      • Building the Foundations
      • Welcome Message
      • Board of Governors
      • Staff Profiles
        • Executive Deputy Chairman’s Office
        • Dean’s Office
        • Management
        • Distinguished Fellows
        • Faculty and Research
        • Associate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research Analysts
        • Visiting Fellows
        • Adjunct Fellows
        • Administrative Staff
      • Honours and Awards for RSIS Staff and Students
      • RSIS Endowment Fund
      • Endowed Professorships
      • Career Opportunities
      • Getting to RSIS
  • Research
      • Research Centres
        • Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)
        • Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)
        • Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS)
        • Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
        • International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
      • Research Programmes
        • National Security Studies Programme (NSSP)
        • Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
      • [email protected] Newsletter
      • Other Research
        • Future Issues And Technology (FIT)
        • Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
  • Graduate Education
      • Graduate Programmes Office
      • Overview
      • MSc (Asian Studies)
      • MSc (International Political Economy)
      • MSc (International Relations)
      • MSc (Strategic Studies)
      • NTU-Warwick Double Masters Programme
      • PhD Programme
      • Exchange Partners and Programmes
      • How to Apply
      • Financial Assistance
      • Meet the Admissions Team: Information Sessions and other events
      • RSIS Alumni
  • Alumni & Networks
      • Alumni
      • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)
      • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO)
      • SRP Executive Programme
      • Terrorism Analyst Training Course (TATC)
  • Publications
      • RSIS Publications
        • Annual Reviews
        • Books
        • Bulletins and Newsletters
        • Commentaries
        • Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
        • Commemorative / Event Reports
        • IDSS Paper
        • Interreligious Relations
        • Monographs
        • NTS Insight
        • Policy Reports
        • Working Papers
        • RSIS Publications for the Year
      • Glossary of Abbreviations
      • External Publications
        • Authored Books
        • Journal Articles
        • Edited Books
        • Chapters in Edited Books
        • Policy Reports
        • Working Papers
        • Op-Eds
        • External Publications for the Year
      • Policy-relevant Articles Given RSIS Award
  • Media
      • Great Powers
      • Sustainable Security
      • Other Resource Pages
      • Media Highlights
      • News Releases
      • Speeches
      • Vidcast Channel
      • Audio/Video Forums
  • Events
  • Giving
  • Contact Us
  • instagram instagram rsis.sg
Connect

Getting to RSIS

Map

Address

Nanyang Technological University
Block S4, Level B3,
50 Nanyang Avenue,
Singapore 639798

View location on Google maps Click here for directions to RSIS

Get in Touch

    Connect with Us

      rsis.ntu
      rsis_ntu
      rsisntu
    RSISVideoCast RSISVideoCast rsisvideocast
      school/rsis-ntu
    instagram instagram rsis.sg
      RSS
    Subscribe to RSIS Publications
    Subscribe to RSIS Events

    RSIS Intranet

    S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Think Tank and Graduate School Ponder The Improbable Since 1966
    Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University

    Skip to content

     
    • RSIS
    • Publication
    • RSIS Publications
    • Beautiful Harmony: Political Project Behind Japan’s New Era Name
    • Annual Reviews
    • Books
    • Bulletins and Newsletters
    • Commentaries
    • Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
    • Commemorative / Event Reports
    • IDSS Paper
    • Interreligious Relations
    • Monographs
    • NTS Insight
    • Policy Reports
    • Working Papers
    • RSIS Publications for the Year

    CO19141 | Beautiful Harmony: Political Project Behind Japan’s New Era Name
    Naoko Kumada

    15 July 2019

    download pdf
    RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical and contemporary issues. The authors’ views are their own and do not represent the official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced with prior permission from RSIS and due credit to the author(s) and RSIS. Please email to Editor RSIS Commentary at [email protected].

    SYNOPSIS

    The shifting dynamics around the new era name (gengō 元号) offers an opportunity to understand how the domestic politics of the LDP’s project of ultranationalism is shaping a new Japan and a new form of nationalism.

    COMMENTARY

    THE NAMING of the new era marking the reign of Emperor Naruhito broke with fourteen centuries of precedent in drawing on a source other than the Chinese, mainly Confucian, Classics.

    The meaning of this departure becomes clear when it is noted that rei-wa, rendered in official English translations as Beautiful Harmony, also reads in Japanese as Beautiful Japan, the political slogan of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s programme of constitutional revision to restore a pre-war Japanese polity based on Emperor-worship.

    Beautiful Japan, Beautiful Harmony

    Abe identifies himself with a political vision he calls ‘Beautiful Japan’. In his book, Toward a Beautiful Country (2006), he described his desire to restore a ‘beautiful’ and ‘proud’ country with ‘the Emperor Institution’ at its core, and with Japan’s ‘perpetual history’ and ‘unique culture’ as its ‘national characteristic (kunigara 国柄)’.

    ‘Beautiful Japan’ is code for kokutai (国体), the pre-war, bio-political, romantic concept of Japan as a ‘proud’, ‘beautiful’ organic political body, ‘a hundred million hearts beating as one’, centered on a divine, ‘unbroken line of Emperors’. In a related image, the emperor’s subjects are conceived as his children, united in a family-state. This term was banned during the Allied Occupation because it was considered the foundational concept of Japanese fascism.

    Abe’s explanation for selecting Reiwa as the new gengō merely repeats his ideas for ‘Beautiful Japan’. He says he wants to pass on Japan’s ‘national characteristics (kunigara)’ of ‘perpetual history’ and ‘highly honoured culture’ through gengō practice that has, alongside the ‘long-standing tradition of Imperial Household’, woven Japanese history. The government also announced the official English translation of Reiwa (令和) as ‘Beautiful Harmony’. ‘Wa’ is of course a homonym for Japan.

    The Chinese Origin of Gengō

    The cabinet sourced “Reiwa” from a body of ancient Japanese poetry (Manyōshū). This turn away from almost 1,400-year-old custom of drawing the name from the shared East Asian canon of Confucian texts can be seen as a continuation of the nationalist strategy of de-sinicisation started in the Meiji era.

    Gengō (also called nengō 年号) practice dates from the 2nd century B.C. reign of Emperor Wu (武帝) of Han (漢). Under Chinese influence, it was also adopted in Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

    From beginning of the ‘Taika’ era (大化 645 A.D.) to the end of the Edo period (1868), an emperor could have multiple gengōs over the time of his reign, or multiple emperors could reign during the course of one gengō. Gengō were changed following auspicious omens or inauspicious events (e.g. natural disaster, epidemic), or according to theories of ancient Chinese astrology (shin i setsu 讖緯説).

    The adaptation of identifying an entire reign gengō, (issē ichigen 一世一元) only dates from China’s Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The Meiji oligarchs took up this practice in 1868.

    Gengō, the ‘Unbroken Line of Emperors’, and Kokutai

    The adoption of a ‘one reign, one era name’ system was part of the Meiji oligarchy’s project to construct a centralised, bureaucratic nation-state united around a divine Emperor. Japan’s native religious traditions were re-organised around a public ideology and cult of State Shintoism.

    State Shinto conceived the Emperor/State in organicist, racial, and religious terms as a nation-body, kokutai. It identifies this body with a Yamato race unique in the world and superior to any other by virtue of its origin and descent from an ‘unbroken line of emperors’ (bansē ikkē 万世一系) descended from the Shinto Sun Goddess Amaterasu. It commanded the religious awe and the absolute obedience of its subjects and became a basis for totalitarian mobilisation and militarisation.

    This is the politico-theological nation-concept revived in Abe’s political slogan and now the gengō: Beautiful Japan.

    Gengō and Imperial vs Popular Sovereignty

    Because the gengō system had come to be identified with the ideology of imperial sovereignty, the opposition has argued that it was incompatible with the popular sovereignty on which post-war Constitution is based.

    Under the Constitution of the Empire of Japan (1889), a provision on gengō existed in Article 12 of the Imperial Household Law (1889). The post-war Constitution introduced popular sovereignty and limited the Emperor’s role to a symbolic function. Accordingly, the gengō system lost its legal basis, particularly as the Allied Occupation discouraged its use because of its association with kokutai. While the gengō Showa continued to be used in official documents, coins, and newspapers after the War, its use was customary rather than legal.

    Religious organisations such as the Association of Shinto Shrines and Nippon Kaigi (then ‘Nippon o mamoru kai’), and conservative groups within the Liberal Democratic Party formed a movement to give gengō legal basis.

    As a result, the Era Name Act was enacted in 1979. Article 1 of the Act prescribes that gengō is established by a cabinet order. Article 2 provides for the ‘one reign, one era name’ system.

    At the popular level however, the notion of a ‘symbol emperor’, implying popular sovereignty, gained widespread support through Emperor Akihito’s pointed efforts. Akihito’s clear projection of a symbol emperor assuaged fears that the revival of gengō might lead to a revival of pre-war imperial doctrines.

    A New Era Name and A New Nationalism

    Reiwa is only the second reign, after Heisei, to have been named by the cabinet. Showa Emperor, Hirohito, was the last emperor to have had the final say on gengō under his reign.

    A leading expert on classical Japanese literature warns that Manyōshū had been a favoured source for pre-war texts promoting militarism. Despite such expressions of disquiet, there has been little public opposition this time, compared to the nation-wide debate as well as 143 terrorist and guerilla incidents in the year following Akihito’s ascension to the throne just three decades ago.

    An NHK opinion poll shows the majority of the survey approving of Reiwa (81%) and of the use of Japanese classical literature (63%). Public support for the cabinet has risen in its wake.

    The Abe government continues in its project of retrieving ‘Beautiful Japan’. Its primary legislative agenda remains the amendment of the constitution, starting with Article 9 that enshrines Japan’s pacifism. The ideas of patriotism and filial piety, which forms the family-state concept, have been revived in educational reforms. The cabinet has revived its participation in State Shinto rituals at the Ise Shrine. The injection of ‘Beautiful Japan’ by the cabinet into the new gengō needs to be seen in this context.

    Only time will tell how nationalism will develop in the time of Beautiful Harmony.

    About the Author

    Naoko Kumada is an Adjunct Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.

    Categories: Commentaries / Country and Region Studies / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Global

    Last updated on 15/07/2019

    comments powered by Disqus
    RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical and contemporary issues. The authors’ views are their own and do not represent the official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced with prior permission from RSIS and due credit to the author(s) and RSIS. Please email to Editor RSIS Commentary at [email protected].

    SYNOPSIS

    The shifting dynamics around the new era name (gengō 元号) offers an opportunity to understand how the domestic politics of the LDP’s project of ultranationalism is shaping a new Japan and a new form of nationalism.

    COMMENTARY

    THE NAMING of the new era marking the reign of Emperor Naruhito broke with fourteen centuries of precedent in drawing on a source other than the Chinese, mainly Confucian, Classics.

    The meaning of this departure becomes clear when it is noted that rei-wa, rendered in official English translations as Beautiful Harmony, also reads in Japanese as Beautiful Japan, the political slogan of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s programme of constitutional revision to restore a pre-war Japanese polity based on Emperor-worship.

    Beautiful Japan, Beautiful Harmony

    Abe identifies himself with a political vision he calls ‘Beautiful Japan’. In his book, Toward a Beautiful Country (2006), he described his desire to restore a ‘beautiful’ and ‘proud’ country with ‘the Emperor Institution’ at its core, and with Japan’s ‘perpetual history’ and ‘unique culture’ as its ‘national characteristic (kunigara 国柄)’.

    ‘Beautiful Japan’ is code for kokutai (国体), the pre-war, bio-political, romantic concept of Japan as a ‘proud’, ‘beautiful’ organic political body, ‘a hundred million hearts beating as one’, centered on a divine, ‘unbroken line of Emperors’. In a related image, the emperor’s subjects are conceived as his children, united in a family-state. This term was banned during the Allied Occupation because it was considered the foundational concept of Japanese fascism.

    Abe’s explanation for selecting Reiwa as the new gengō merely repeats his ideas for ‘Beautiful Japan’. He says he wants to pass on Japan’s ‘national characteristics (kunigara)’ of ‘perpetual history’ and ‘highly honoured culture’ through gengō practice that has, alongside the ‘long-standing tradition of Imperial Household’, woven Japanese history. The government also announced the official English translation of Reiwa (令和) as ‘Beautiful Harmony’. ‘Wa’ is of course a homonym for Japan.

    The Chinese Origin of Gengō

    The cabinet sourced “Reiwa” from a body of ancient Japanese poetry (Manyōshū). This turn away from almost 1,400-year-old custom of drawing the name from the shared East Asian canon of Confucian texts can be seen as a continuation of the nationalist strategy of de-sinicisation started in the Meiji era.

    Gengō (also called nengō 年号) practice dates from the 2nd century B.C. reign of Emperor Wu (武帝) of Han (漢). Under Chinese influence, it was also adopted in Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

    From beginning of the ‘Taika’ era (大化 645 A.D.) to the end of the Edo period (1868), an emperor could have multiple gengōs over the time of his reign, or multiple emperors could reign during the course of one gengō. Gengō were changed following auspicious omens or inauspicious events (e.g. natural disaster, epidemic), or according to theories of ancient Chinese astrology (shin i setsu 讖緯説).

    The adaptation of identifying an entire reign gengō, (issē ichigen 一世一元) only dates from China’s Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The Meiji oligarchs took up this practice in 1868.

    Gengō, the ‘Unbroken Line of Emperors’, and Kokutai

    The adoption of a ‘one reign, one era name’ system was part of the Meiji oligarchy’s project to construct a centralised, bureaucratic nation-state united around a divine Emperor. Japan’s native religious traditions were re-organised around a public ideology and cult of State Shintoism.

    State Shinto conceived the Emperor/State in organicist, racial, and religious terms as a nation-body, kokutai. It identifies this body with a Yamato race unique in the world and superior to any other by virtue of its origin and descent from an ‘unbroken line of emperors’ (bansē ikkē 万世一系) descended from the Shinto Sun Goddess Amaterasu. It commanded the religious awe and the absolute obedience of its subjects and became a basis for totalitarian mobilisation and militarisation.

    This is the politico-theological nation-concept revived in Abe’s political slogan and now the gengō: Beautiful Japan.

    Gengō and Imperial vs Popular Sovereignty

    Because the gengō system had come to be identified with the ideology of imperial sovereignty, the opposition has argued that it was incompatible with the popular sovereignty on which post-war Constitution is based.

    Under the Constitution of the Empire of Japan (1889), a provision on gengō existed in Article 12 of the Imperial Household Law (1889). The post-war Constitution introduced popular sovereignty and limited the Emperor’s role to a symbolic function. Accordingly, the gengō system lost its legal basis, particularly as the Allied Occupation discouraged its use because of its association with kokutai. While the gengō Showa continued to be used in official documents, coins, and newspapers after the War, its use was customary rather than legal.

    Religious organisations such as the Association of Shinto Shrines and Nippon Kaigi (then ‘Nippon o mamoru kai’), and conservative groups within the Liberal Democratic Party formed a movement to give gengō legal basis.

    As a result, the Era Name Act was enacted in 1979. Article 1 of the Act prescribes that gengō is established by a cabinet order. Article 2 provides for the ‘one reign, one era name’ system.

    At the popular level however, the notion of a ‘symbol emperor’, implying popular sovereignty, gained widespread support through Emperor Akihito’s pointed efforts. Akihito’s clear projection of a symbol emperor assuaged fears that the revival of gengō might lead to a revival of pre-war imperial doctrines.

    A New Era Name and A New Nationalism

    Reiwa is only the second reign, after Heisei, to have been named by the cabinet. Showa Emperor, Hirohito, was the last emperor to have had the final say on gengō under his reign.

    A leading expert on classical Japanese literature warns that Manyōshū had been a favoured source for pre-war texts promoting militarism. Despite such expressions of disquiet, there has been little public opposition this time, compared to the nation-wide debate as well as 143 terrorist and guerilla incidents in the year following Akihito’s ascension to the throne just three decades ago.

    An NHK opinion poll shows the majority of the survey approving of Reiwa (81%) and of the use of Japanese classical literature (63%). Public support for the cabinet has risen in its wake.

    The Abe government continues in its project of retrieving ‘Beautiful Japan’. Its primary legislative agenda remains the amendment of the constitution, starting with Article 9 that enshrines Japan’s pacifism. The ideas of patriotism and filial piety, which forms the family-state concept, have been revived in educational reforms. The cabinet has revived its participation in State Shinto rituals at the Ise Shrine. The injection of ‘Beautiful Japan’ by the cabinet into the new gengō needs to be seen in this context.

    Only time will tell how nationalism will develop in the time of Beautiful Harmony.

    About the Author

    Naoko Kumada is an Adjunct Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.

    Categories: Commentaries / Country and Region Studies

    Last updated on 15/07/2019

    Back to top

    Terms of Use | Privacy Statement
    Copyright © S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. All rights reserved.
    This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience. By continuing, you are agreeing to the use of cookies on your device as described in our privacy policy. Learn more
    OK
    Latest Book
    Beautiful Harmony: Political Project Behind Japan’s New Era Name

    SYNOPSIS

    The shifting dynamics around the new era name (gengō 元号) offers an opportunity to understand how the domestic politics of the LDP’s projec ...
    more info